The Return of Joy Williams's The Changeling

There is a terrific article in the New York Times literary blog, Paper Cuts, by Dwight Garner on the triumphant and long overdue return of award-winning author Joy Williams's novel, The Changeling. The article looks at the savage drubbing the novel first received in 1978 by a reviewer who knew very little about the evocative and emotionally deep well of fairy tales and mythic fiction. (Boy, some things don't change!) It is wonderful to know that the book is finally receiving the attention it deserved, and kudos to The Fairy Tale Review  Press (and brilliant editor Kate Bernheimer) for making it available once again. (We will be posting a full review in the near future.)

Comments

[Rvnsng]

Critic/reviewer Anatole Broyard died at age 70 following a year-long struggle with prostate cancer. Joy Williams is alive and well and has enjoyed a successful career in spite of such critics. Let the reader take whatever lessons he or she will from this. I look forward to reading The Changeling.

[Dante's Heart]

I am so glad of this!

I remember that Richard Adams' Watership Down was rejected 48 times before finding a home with a publisher, and Peter S. Beagle used to receive some horrific drubbing from his publishers, too. And then there were the acidic remarks by reviewers in the U.K. during the late 1950s about J.R.R. Tolkien's foray into "more childish work."

Critics!

I was writing to a friend today that the scholar is the left hand of the poet and the poet is the left hand of the scholar, but that I remain uncertain where the unscholarly "critic" fits into that - perhaps they are an unexpected growth, rather like a sixth finger or a third ear.